The interference of Coulomb and nuclear excitation was studied by the scattering of 70.4-MeV /sup 12/C ions from the stable even Nd nuclei (/sup 142/Nd, /sup 144/Nd, /sup 146/Nd, /sup 148/Nd, /sup 150/Nd). The differential cross sections for inelastic scattering from the low-lying 2/sup +/, 4/sup +/, 3/sup -/, and 2/sup +//sub 2/ states, as well as elastic scattering from these isotopes, were obtained. In addition, the cross sections for exciting the 2/sup +/ (4.43 MeV) state of the /sup 12/C projectile and the 6/sup +/ state in /sup 150/Nd were also obtained. The differential cross sections for exciting low lying collective states of the target and projectile are compared with distorted-wave Born-approximation and coupled-channels calculations. Standard distorted-wave Born-approximation calculations using known Coulomb matrix elements fail to fit the data. The coupled-channels analysis, however, can account for these data and reveals the importance of multistep processes in heavy ion reactions.